Being in Beta is cool. So cool that five years after its April 2004 launch Gmail is still held in Beta by Google. That’s despite the fact that it has 146 million users worldwide (Comscore, April 2009). Which is sort of ridiculous.
Now we’re hearing that Google is having an internal debate about removing the Beta logos from a number of products that are aimed at enterprise customers.
About half of Google’s products were still in Beta at the end of 2008. Retaining the Beta notation in the logo gives the company a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card when problems occur. Hey, it’s still in Beta, so don’t be surprised when something goes wrong.
There’s a problem though. Sure, users think Beta is geeky and fun and cutting edge. But it turns out that enterprise customers are a little more serious about stuff working. A Beta tag means what it’s supposed to mean – not fully baked. Stuff that isn’t fully baked has risks, and guys that run IT at companies aren’t fans of risk. They need things locked down. And while they’re smart enough to know that Google’s Betas aren’t really Betas, they aren’t going to take a risk. If something goes wrong it’s their fault.
That’s why Google took Chrome out of Beta just a couple of months after it was first released. OEMs need release software to install it on PCs, so they had to move it along. Marissa Mayer talked about Google Betas in general, and Chrome specifically, at the Le Web conference in Paris last December – the relevant clip is below.
Don’t look for Google to give up their love of Betas in general. But they may remove the Beta notation from a number of Google Apps services, which are aimed at enterprise customers, sometime soon. A source first tipped us off that a debate was going on at Google, and we’ve subsequently confirmed it. Some top execs feel strongly that the Google Apps products need to have the Beta notation in their logos removed to get some enterprise customers to even consider switching from Microsoft Office.
Four of the five core Google Apps services are still in Beta: Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk and Google Calendar. Google Sites, previously Jot, is the lone exception. We may see those Beta notations coming down soon, though. Stay tuned.
I know the video isn’t working yet, it’s still processing. Will be up shortly I hope.
I like the way she explains the Beta’s for Desktop Apps versus Web Apps.
I dont like the hogwash. they use the term beta to appear less of a “we gonna mow all you mo’fo’s over” monopoly and to appear they are still a “clumsy” innovative company. the term beta buffers there dominance. they could slaughter thousands of businesses overnignt but would rather play dumb and milk addense till the wheels fall off.
ThinkLocator.com – food for thought
Is it only me or the video is still no working? There’s a gap between paragraphs.
Google has almost made the public website beta a joke. Unless you launch a site in private beta, it isn’t really beta. It just becomes, as you mentioned, an out for you in case something goes wrong.
“Unless you launch a site in private beta, it isn’t really beta.”
I disagree. I think a lot of sites launch in public beta with the hope that they can get a lot of user feedback to improve the site. The beta tag should mean that there are constantly going to be changes made to the site and that bugs/glitches might occur. Once the core functionality has been developed and most of the bugs and glitches fixed then it becomes “an out for you in case something goes wrong” if the website continues to use the beta tag.
All websites should continually change and update. A site that doesn’t will become obsolete because something better will come along. So the beta tag shouldn’t imply changes are coming. That would imply sites like Myspace, Facebook and Twitter are going to remain exactly as they are because they aren’t in beta.
Yeah, I thought it to be interesting that Google are still cracking on with the BETA status. I guess corporate want BETTER.
It is frankly as you say Michael, ridiculous.
Mike, do you have any info on the status of Push Gmail?
Google already licensed Microsoft ActiveSync and is currently using the protocol for contacts and calendar. They have hinted email support.
Any news on this front would be appreciated.
This story doesn’t say anything good about Google or enterprise customers, does it? Google is taking the “Beta” products just to convince the enterprise IT guys that the services are ready, but the IT managers are the ones falling for it.
Both sides are being shallow, but one side is shallow and gullible.
I’m not sure I agree on your comment on enterprise IT guys — removing the Beta tag won’t suddenly get them to adopt and believe the product is ready for prime time, they”ll do their own evaluation of that. It does at least give them a chance to “consider the apps — many won’t even really even look at it until it’s in “production”. That said, it doesn’t say much for the vaunted Googel engineering team if they can’t get a product out of beta after 5 YEARS. I’m not sure for many enterprise customers they are really enterprise ready yet — down time, security lapses, etc. suggest they still have a ways to go before mainstream enterprise users will adopt.
Speaking of beta, has anyone else noticed problems with Google Sites? A site I put up using Google Sites just lost all ability to list pages in a sidebar, and some other formatting broke. Sure it’s free, but…
I agree it’s totally ridiculous to still have a beta tag on gmail.
Why has the gmail beta lasted this long? Does Google have an explanation? Michael?
Yeah Mike, its ridiculous when 146 million peoples use Google’s service and half of their products were still in Beta at the end of 2008.
Why exactly Google keeping their product in beta notations? It makes me curious,..
lol on first paragraph!
So now the next trend we’ll see for freemium service providers is that free products are infinitely in beta, while premium versions of the same products are not in beta (primarily a different logo) – sounds like a great plan.
If that the case, Google is already over – unless it’s adds a beta sign.
Nooo!!! I don’t know what I’ll do without it being in BETA!!!
I couldn’t get the video to play… But anyway it is about time Google stop beating around the bush. Now all they have to do is take PR out of Beta and they will be complete..
yes, I thought it to be interesting that Google are still cracking on with the BETA status
Yeah.. Google like to be a child who is given a clean chit on making any number of blunders!! Google needs to grow up!!
playing it safe
Who uses Google for mission critical business stuff anyway? Google Docs leaks your private info, Searching ‘Gmail “is down”‘ on Twitter search shows there’s constant downtime on GMail.
The cloud is still too cumulo nimbus for my liking.
there might be a simpler reason. revenue recognition rules might require that the product is production.
Google Internal Debate Beta…
Obviously, the video is still in beta.
Come on Mike, is this really a worthwhile thing to write about? Thousands of startups are killing themselves to get coverage from TechCrunch and other similar blogs and you waste space and attention writing about speculation on whether Google *might* be considering removing the “Beta” tag from some products.
This story is not interesting from an innovation perspective, a product perspective, or a business perspective. Tell us about something new, something interesting that we haven’t read about many other places. Stop feeding the Twitter, Google, Facebook echo chamber.
You are one of the few blogs that can get an exclusive on almost any story in the startup world. Use that power to do something amazing. Will it sell more advertising? Who knows…maybe, maybe not. Will it help TechCrunch become more unique, interesting, and unreproduceable? I sure hope so.
Continuing to put out “stories” like the one above leads me to believe that TechCrunch will fade into irrelevance like CNET rather than displacing it.
Marissa is f***ing hot
I’m a pro IT guy who uses google apps, and I can’t disagree more with this article.
Not a single one of google’s products is stable enough to remove the BETA tag:
* Their IMAP service can’t stay on long enough for you to download your mail.
* In the gmail interface, the date & time of about 50% of email messages is simply wrong.
* Their notion of “aliases” is simply a joke – either for your mailbox or your domain
* The calendar can not, in any way shape or form, reliably deliver reminders to you. Email, sms, popup – none work reliably.
I could write a whole article just listing the things that don’t work (and I have on my website).
Google, you may live and die in beta jail as far as I’m concerned.
The beta label was inherited from desktop applications and when the web cam along, it flowed into the lexicon. I think what Google means by beta is “we’re still modifying it – all the features are not complete, etc” What the web needs is a word to replace the word “beta”. A word that’s better suited for software that is on the server and not installed on the local machine. This opens an opportunity for someone to coin a new phrase. May I suggest “WireBeta”, I’m sure someone can come up with something more geeky.
geez thats a lot of apps, google keeps beating themselves
Wow. You don’t have to be a lawyer to sift through that crap.
“In client software Betas are well-defined, but with web stuff, we don’t know the definition, so we’ll keep it there indefinitely since we’re insecure about its stability.”
Name it STABLE and sell it, that’s what MS did years ago.
Free services would keep the BETA tag and the risk (?) of random failures.
Duh. I think only people deep inside the bubble of Silicon Valley didn’t realize this. Those are also the same few people who think that using unfinished software is not only a good idea, but “cool”.
Not sure that out-of-beta is that much legal exposure. I’m sure the Terms of Service will be structured to provide adequate protection. Bug ridden released software is just too common for substantial legal issues to be a meaningful governor.
The biggest issue I see with the pathetic, on-going Beta status has more to do with the maturity of Google’s product development cycle. The creative, spaghetti-on-the-wall (SOTW) approach espoused by G’s management has so far proven to be pretty limiting IMHO.
It is always great to give engineers free reign, and no hard deadlines. I always used to say when working at a major tech company that “The Labs” was the ideal place to work because they just had to work on cool stuff, never being responsible for market leading solutions.
My sense watching Google these years is that they are like my old “Labs” buddies WTR true product innovation. The process for creating extremely high-value product (outside of the occasional lucky break) is very difficult to do well. Not that many companies do it well.
A good while ago I determined that Google’s never-ending Beta approach simply indicated that they do not have (nor do they probably believe) in the values available by following product development cycles. Listening to some of the comments from those leaving (yes a biased source) indicates that the SOTW-induced chaos can get pretty frustrating (search for a blog post from a MSFT engineer who went to G. then back to M. due to frustrations along these lines).
Ultimately it all goes to belief that a loose collection of the brightest engineers is the best approach for new product development. That may be true for small businesses, but I think it very unlikely that even the most brilliant engineers can overcome the drag of working in a process-less large enterprise.
But Google is convinced their approach is best. They have had one brilliant product (done as a small business) that fills them with free cash and hubris. So I expect only more of the same from them
I wish beta would die. Regular people have no idea what it means, and honestly, those are who you are trying to communicate with. Doesn’t make any sense.
Beta is meaningless. Each piece of software / cloudware will have it’s own reputation of reliability as determined by consensus / track record, and that’s all that matters.
Staying in Beta for its major products probably isn’t going to be good for Google in the long run, whether they are for enterprise customers or not. Maybe the non-enterprise users aren’t going to tell whether the product is in Beta or not – but it does feel like Google is offering a “lesser” product to these users than what they would offer to their enterprise customers. Besides, they shouldn’t really be staying in Beta unless they’re still working on fixing the bugs that after 5 years, should have already resolved most, if not all, of them.
Well when it is down like it is at the moment and you have presentations to print that are stuck in your inbox it doesn’t matter if it is beta or not. Poor IT guys have no one to call either.
it seems you block all my comments when i post with my real credentials. just trying if it goes through when i use false credentials and make advertisement for a fake website:
http://tech2dontclick.net
if you read this comment then techcrunch’s spam filtering is bad
Are you trying to imply these people have pointy heads? You crammed a high-def picture into a standard aspect ratio frame.
beta… come one, it’s better to be beta then final product, all junk
likely or not
gtalk is best
ofcourse they need to be redone a lot but its still the best
even if i have own business email…
all my emails ar forwarded to my gtalk
simple and good
google docs is my one
no mather what its still best